Qualia And death

[lostone]

Finally, we could mention quantum immortality, which depends on the quantum multiverse actually existing. On this account we aren’t reincarnated but we never die, either, because we literally can’t. Every time we encounter a life or death situation, the universe splits into one in which we survive, and others in which we do not.

Just now I searched the forum for the emboldened phrase and found this. I've tended to believe in quantum immortality after a few mishaps which "should" have caused my death. Should I wistfully imagine the myriads of universes where my family cremated me decades ago?

And now, it seems, that the weird zigs and zags which have kept one peculiar instantiation of my self alive, have led to impossible absurdities in American society and geopolitics.

I feel like I should apologize to one and all that the strange trajectory which has kept me alive has led to such widespread misfortune. But rationally I realize that you all survive in gazillions of happier alternate realities. Perhaps you fellow denizens of my reality also took peculiar zigs and zags that led you here.

Thank you for accepting the blame - I thought it was me, but I suppose millions of others felt the same. Your name will live forever in infamy, but we would be unkind not to forgive you.

 

[pood]

Whether qualia or consciousness in some form survive death might turn on whether metaphysical idealism is true, as opposed to the default assumption of metaphysical naturalism.

 

[Elixir]

Whether qualia or consciousness in some form survive death might turn on whether metaphysical idealism is true, as opposed to the default assumption of metaphysical naturalism.

I’m sure consciousness will survive my death, but not my consciousness.

 

[No Robots]

There is only one human soul, and it is infinite and eternal. A soul is an idea of God, and it abides eternally and infinitely in the mind of God. The soul of man is expressed materially in the infinite number of individual men. Each individual man embodies the soul of man in a specific way. The essence of man’s soul is reason. The more an individual man identifies himself with reason, the more he shares in the eternal and infinite soul of mankind, and the less he concerns himself with his own individual death.

 

[lostone]

If Max Tegmark is correct in claiming the universe/God is an expression of all the possibilities in mathematics, and human consciousness is a mathematical entity, I suppose that makes some degree of sense.

There is only one human soul, and it is infinite and eternal. A soul is an idea of God, and it abides eternally and infinitely in the mind of God. The soul of man is expressed materially in the infinite number of individual men. Each individual man embodies the soul of man in a specific way. The essence of man’s soul is reason. The more an individual man identifies himself with reason, the more he shares in the eternal and infinite soul of mankind, and the less he concerns himself with his own individual death.

 

[bilby]

There is only one human soul, and it is infinite and eternal.

How do you know this?

You seem very confident in this assertion; I presume that you have lots of very strong evidence, and I would be grateful if you would share at least some of the most compelling parts of it.

A soul is an idea of God, and it abides eternally and infinitely in the mind of God.

A God is an idea of man, and it abides solely and ephemerally in the brain of man.

The soul of man is expressed materially in the infinite number of individual men.

The number of individual men will never exceed about 10-12 billion simultaneously, and is highly unlikely to exceed 10¹⁵ in total, ever - Humans have only existed for a few tens of thousands of years, and are likely to be extinct within a million generations.

Each individual man embodies the soul of man in a specific way. The essence of man’s soul is reason.

Then where does God come into it? Gods are fiction, and fiction is by definition not subject to reason.

Reality does not contradict itself; It is internally consistent. Fiction can contradict itself in literally any way we can imagine.

The more an individual man identifies himself with reason, the more he shares in the eternal and infinite soul of mankind, and the less he concerns himself with his own individual death.

FTFY. There is no reason to concern ourselves with the inevitable; Souls (like everything else) are irrelevant to that simple fact.

Immortality of any kind is impossible, and to strive for it, plan for it, or anyicipate it is therefore futile.

The impossible is the easiest task of all, because we can always achieve the optimum result, with zero effort.

If Max Tegmark is correct in claiming the universe/God is an expression of all the possibilities in mathematics, and human consciousness is a mathematical entity, I suppose that makes some degree of sense.

If we redefine "God" in that way, it becomes obvious that it is a redundant concept. Remove "/God" and your meaning is completely unchanged.

And still contains a very big, and unsupported, "if". Is Tegmark correct? What evidence do we have for that? It seems to me to be pure speculation, and as valuable an insight as "If we had some eggs, we could have bacon and eggs, if only we had some bacon".

 

[lostone]

There is only one human soul, and it is infinite and eternal.

How do you know this?

You seem very confident in this assertion; I presume that you have lots of very strong evidence, and I would be grateful if you would share at least some of the most compelling parts of it.

A soul is an idea of God, and it abides eternally and infinitely in the mind of God.

A God is an idea of man, and it abides solely and ephemerally in the brain of man.

The soul of man is expressed materially in the infinite number of individual men.

The number of individual men will never exceed about 10-12 billion simultaneously, and is highly unlikely to exceed 10¹⁵ in total, ever - Humans have only existed for a few tens of thousands of years, and are likely to be extinct within a million generations.

Each individual man embodies the soul of man in a specific way. The essence of man’s soul is reason.

Then where does God come into it? Gods are fiction, and fiction is by definition not subject to reason.

Reality does not contradict itself; It is internally consistent. Fiction can contradict itself in literally any way we can imagine.

The more an individual man identifies himself with reason, the more he shares in the eternal and infinite soul of mankind, and the less he concerns himself with his own individual death.

FTFY. There is no reason to concern ourselves with the inevitable; Souls (like everything else) are irrelevant to that simple fact.

Immortality of any kind is impossible, and to strive for it, plan for it, or anyicipate it is therefore futile.

The impossible is the easiest task of all, because we can always achieve the optimum result, with zero effort.

If Max Tegmark is correct in claiming the universe/God is an expression of all the possibilities in mathematics, and human consciousness is a mathematical entity, I suppose that makes some degree of sense.

If we redefine "God" in that way, it becomes obvious that it is a redundant concept. Remove "/God" and your meaning is completely unchanged.

And still contains a very big, and unsupported, "if". Is Tegmark correct? What evidence do we have for that? It seems to me to be pure speculation, and as valuable an insight as "If we had some eggs, we could have bacon and eggs, if only we had some bacon".

I don't disagree with that assessment.

 

[No Robots]

There is only one human soul, and it is infinite and eternal.

How do you know this?

This is self-evident. Just as all oak trees have the same essential nature, so do all men. As Feuerbach put it, "science is knowledge of generic essences [Gattungswesen]." Marx's entire oeuvre is based on this principle. This is the main difference between Marx and Darwin. Darwin attempted to erase the notion of Gattungswesen, and thereby was anti-scientific.

A soul is an idea of God, and it abides eternally and infinitely in the mind of God.

A God is an idea of man, and it abides solely and ephemerally in the brain of man.

This was Feuerbach’s position, and he was followed here by Marx. They are both wrong. To correct them, it is necessary to refer back to Hegel, who presents God correctly as the principle of dynamic creation. The solution to the materialist/idealist antagonism is in true monism wherein God and the material world are understood as two aspects of the whole of Being. This was the position of Spinoza.

The soul of man is expressed materially in the infinite number of individual men.

The number of individual men will never exceed about 10-12 billion simultaneously, and is highly unlikely to exceed 10¹⁵ in total, ever - Humans have only existed for a few tens of thousands of years, and are likely to be extinct within a million generations.

Each form is in essence capable of infinite and eternal expression. The actual ability of a form to express itself is necessarily restrained by the presence and activity of other forms.

Each individual man embodies the soul of man in a specific way. The essence of man’s soul is reason.

Then where does God come into it? Gods are fiction, and fiction is by definition not subject to reason.

As stated at the outset, the soul is an idea. The idea originates in mind. Mind is the essence of God. For clarity on this point, we may use instead of God the word das Denkende [the Cogitant] coined by Constantin Brunner.

The more an individual man identifies himself with reason, the more he shares in the eternal and infinite soul of mankind, and the less he concerns himself with his own individual death.

FTFY. There is no reason to concern ourselves with the inevitable; Souls (like everything else) are irrelevant to that simple fact.

Immortality of any kind is impossible, and to strive for it, plan for it, or anyicipate it is therefore futile.

Immortality is the essence of reality. This is the universal insight of reason. Life and death are correlatives in infinite and eternal process. The more one identifies with this infinite and eternal process, the less one’s thought and action are restricted to and by the finite and temporal phenomena.

 

[Elixir]

Humans have only existed for a few tens of thousands of years, and are likely to be extinct within a million generations.

Vegas has it at a billion to one we don’t make it that far.

 

[pood]

There is only one human soul, and it is infinite and eternal.

How do you know this?

This is self-evident. Just as all oak trees have the same essential nature, so do all men. As Feuerbach put it, "science is knowledge of generic essences [Gattungswesen]." Marx's entire oeuvre is based on this principle. This is the main difference between Marx and Darwin. Darwin attempted to erase the notion of Gattungswesen, and thereby was anti-scientific.

Could you elaborate on this?

 

[pood]

Feuerbach’s generic essence denies the existence of a literal god. That said, I do not see how Darwin attempted to erase this notion. Perhaps you could explain.

 

[pood]

While it’s true that it’s notoriously hard to pin down unambiguously what science is or isn’t, as discussed in the philosophy of science thread, most people could say they know science when they see it, and if Darwin was unscientific, then science doesn’t exist.

 

[steve_bank]

One can quote mine any number of sources for something to support a philosophical view of scien or anything else. 'The 'nature' of religion and philosophy.

None of it is science.

I read Marx back in the day, and it was covered in a political science class. The teacher said in gernal Marx is considered the greatest social scientist of all time.

He accurately described the economics ad social system of the day. western liberal democracies and free market economics are not what it was in the day of Marx although people try to apply the terms today.

As to religion, European religion was always a tool of the state and oppression, a control mechanism. The pope and local bishops and churches accumulated wealth.

Not much different today in the USA. Christianity at he top amasses a lot of wealth and it is used to influence politics.

You only have to look at Henry 8th and the pope.

That communism which followed Marx was against religion was not based in ideology, it was more based in observation and experience.

The Russian church served the aristocracy to suppress the people.

AI Overview
Karl Marx: His Books, Theories, and Impact
Karl Marx is widely considered one of history's most influential and significant social scientists, a founding figure in sociology and a major influence on economic thought and political theory. His holistic theories, which examined the relationship between economic structures, class conflict, and societal change, provided the foundation for modern sociology and continue to inform critical analyses of capitalism and power dynamics today.

As to the OP, does the disembodied eternal soul have a libido and penis or vagina?

Eternal sex without getting tired, that would be something.

 

[steve_bank]

Can two souls occupy the same space at the same time?

An AI summary of Darwin.

Darwin's key observations were that organisms produce more offspring than can survive, that there is significant variation within a species, and that traits are heritable. He concluded that this leads to a "struggle for existence," where individuals with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, a process he called natural selection. Over long periods, these advantageous traits accumulate, causing species to adapt to their environments and, ultimately, evolve into new species.

Soeone can refute me, I don't think Darwin set out to disprove or prove anything.

No, Charles Darwin did not set out on his voyage aboard the HMS
Beagle with the goal of proving the theory of evolution. At the time he was a young, observant naturalist who believed, like most of his contemporaries, that species were fixed and unchanged. The five-year journey provided him with the critical evidence that would later lead him to formulate his theory

His conclusions did have a theological impact.

No, Charles Darwin was not a devout Christian; while he was educated in the Church of England and initially trained to become a clergyman, his views evolved towards agnosticism, though he never fully denied the existence of God. His public silence on religion contrasts with his private writings, which describe a gradual shift from his youthful Anglican faith to a broader, more skeptical perspective. He settled on the term agnostic to describe his state of mind in later life, especially as a response to being called an atheist.

 

[bilby]

This is self-evident.

No, it really isn't.

You just want it to be true; That's NOT the same thing AT ALL.

 

[bilby]

Feuerbach’s generic essence denies the existence of a literal god. That said, I do not see how Darwin attempted to erase this notion. Perhaps you could explain.

Or perhaps he could post more wordy nonsense filled with name-dropping, that he hopes will terrify his audience into dropping their request for actual evidence in support of his claims.

 

[DBT]

'Generic essence' won't keep the lights on or put food on the table.

 

[pood]

I’m still trying to figure out, first, how Darwin was trying to erase these “generic essences,” and second, even if he was, how that made him anti-scientific.

 

[lostone]

I’m still trying to figure out, first, how Darwin was trying to erase these “generic essences,” and second, even if he was, how that made him anti-scientific.

You have a lot of company among the majority of biologists.

 

[pood]

My reading of Feurebach’s “generic essences” is that all human share many traits in common, which, tbh, doesn’t strike me as some earth-shaking insight. Schopenhauer said something similar when he wrote that the cat on the fence was the same cat that lived a thousand years ago. Is the idea here that Darwin identifying modifiable heritability somehow challenges that notion, or what?